The Trapdoor
by bon chocolat
Summary: There's something strange about that trapdoor, Harry. Whenever I saw it, it made me think of... no, nevermind. It couldn't be. Implied HG, NL... WILL SOON BE UPDATED!
1. Appearing Again

If Colin Creevey had been one to follow the rules, he would have been in the Great Hall of Hogwarts with the other students, eating the Christmas Eve feast. If Orla Quirke had been as chaste as she was intelligent, she would not have been in the sixth year Gryffindor boys' dorm that evening, either. As it were, they were then enjoying certain promiscuous activities together when Colin's brother walked into the room with rather exciting news.

"Colin, you'll never bel-

Dennis pulled back the bed curtains and made a face. "Colin, I swear, I'll tell Mum…"

The older Creevey son rolled his eyes and whispered something in the girl's ear, which caused her to grin, nod, and hop of the bed and out of the room. Colin smiled. "That Orla is some girl Dennis, you wouldn't believe-

"Glad we have that settled then." The stern look on Dennis face suddenly turned into pure joy as he exclaimed, "You'll never believe what Ginny, Neville, and I have found under the rug by the fire place, come on, they're all waiting for you…"

Dennis abruptly turned around and gasped. A far-off look appeared in his eyes as he said under his breath, "Neville…" his eyes grew wider and he yelled "Neville!" and ran out of the room.

Colin sat, stunned for the moment, then rolled his eyes again and threw his legs off the side of the bed. Neville appeared in the doorway, smirk a mile wide on his face.

"You should grab your cloak, Colin. You'll be glad."

Colin looked skeptical. "I'm only going down to the common room."

Neville's grin grew almost impossibly wider.

"I know." He laughed, and ran up the staircase to the seventh year boys' dorm.

Sighing, Colin pulled his cloak off the bedstead and walked out of the room.

Downstairs, Ginny was sitting on the couch alone, staring into the fire. She was decked out in her winter warmest, complete with earmuffs and mittens. A pensive look graced her features. Colin interrupted by clearing his throat. Ginny looked up and smiled.

"Are you ready?"

Colin smiled and raised his eyebrows. "I would tell you, except I don't exactly know what is going on."

"I suppose you will just have to see, then, won't you?"

They were interrupted by a loud bang as the portrait hole burst open and Dennis strode through carrying a big picnic basket with the Hogwarts crest on top. "Went and got this from the kitchens. Good thing everyone's at the feast, there's so many people here this winter I would have never gotten by. We wouldn't have been able to keep this to ourselves, either." Ginny barely had time to nod before Neville stumbled down the last few stairs to the common room, and flung an old tattered piece of parchment towards Dennis. The parchment promptly hit Dennis on the side of the head. Neville looked surprised and terrified.

"I'm so sorry, Dennis!"

Dennis beamed. "It's fantastic how Harry left this for you when he left this summer, Nev. It's just the perfect little coincidence. Do you reckon it's here…?"

He picked up the parchment and began to unfold it. A look of recognition slowly dawned on Colin's face.

"Is that the Marauder's Map?" Having stalked Harry for quite a few years prior to his leaving, Colin knew all about the mysterious map and its many wonders.

Dennis, pulling his wand out of his back pocket, replied, "One and the same, Colin. I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

The whole of Hogwarts appeared on the map, ink spreading from the center of the parchment as if poured there from above. Dennis ignored this and quickly flipped through the pages, searching for a specific place…

"Found it!" The younger Creevey pointed to a spot on the map with his wand, and then frowned. "Or, rather, I didn't… the trapdoor's not here!"

"What?" Ginny grabbed the map from Dennis' hands, and searched the place marked 'Gryffindor Common Room'.

"Wicked! Wait 'til I tell Fred and George we found a secret passage that neither they nor the marauders found!" A smug grin slowly replaced Ginny's look of disbelief.

"Secret passage?" Colin loathed not knowing what was going on. He took a few steps forward and glanced over Ginny's shoulder at the map. In the common room, there was a dot labeled Neville Longbottom, a dot labeled Ginevra Weasley, a dot marking The Creevey Brothers, and one labeled Crookshanks in the far corner of the room, by the window. He looked up at that spot and saw the cat sitting on the sill, staring at him and flicking its tail. The cat's glance never wavered. Colin looked back down.

"What exactly is it that I am looking for, now?" Colin shook off the unnerving feeling Crookshanks had given him and glanced over at Neville, who was bending down by the edge of the sofa. Neville grabbed the border of the rug and said with an excited but shaky voice, "This."

Dennis bent down and helped Neville roll the rug back across the floor in front of the fireplace. They both looked up at him and smiled. Colin looked at the newly bared floorboards.

There was nothing there.

"Er, Dennis…" Colin bit his lip to keep from laughing. "Is there a reason I should be excited about these floorboards?"

Dennis was stunned. He scrambled around frantically on the floor searching for something. "The latch was here just a moment ago!"

Colin smirked at the group. "I'll be up in the dorm," he said, and sauntered off. Dennis was left looking crestfallen in floor, with Ginny and Neville beside him.


	2. Letters

"Dear H,

It's been a while since we've spoken. We miss you around here. It's been awfully quiet since you left. I won't say anything of consequence since I don't know if this letter will reach you, but something strange happened last week. Everything was _common, _just like any other day, but then Dennis got _caught _on an_ entrance _we hadn't seen before. There was something strange about it, H. Whenever I saw it, it made me think the time we saw that dog first year. You know, the one with three_… personalities_? It's probably nothing, I know. This couldn't possibly be related, could it?

"I sincerely hope you know what I'm talking about, because Merlin knows I sure don't.

Your Friend,

N. L."

Neville set his quill down on the desk and glanced up to a nearby window in his Charms class. As a few light, delicate snowflakes fell from the sky and down out of his view, he wondered if his absent friend would be able to calm his fears about the trapdoor.

It hadn't shown up again after that evening. Dennis had checked for it every single evening after everyone had gone to bed and every morning he met Ginny and Neville at the breakfast table, disappointed and growingly frustrated. He had even pulled a Hermione and spent both Saturday and Sunday researching in the library, hoping to find the answers that eluded him in one of the ancient tomes.

Neville simply didn't understand. The door had definitely been there, that was certain. They had all seen it. He had tried to assuage his fears of the trapdoor by coming up with a different explanation than the one in the back of his mind. If he thought about it, why shouldn't a trapdoor randomly appear in their Common Room? He had heard of stranger things happening at Hogwarts. If the Room of Requirement could become anything you wanted it to be, maybe it worked the same way with the trapdoor, simply showing up whenever the urge struck it. But every time Neville thought of the trapdoor his mind was instantly and inexplicably drawn to the third floor corridor and the trapdoor he had discovered on an extremely adventurous night near the beginning of his first year. Of course, these two incidents were most likely completely unrelated. He knew he wasn't very smart, and had never trusted his own logic. But try as he might, he just couldn't get rid of a niggling fear that there was something more to the trapdoor than met the eye.

"Mr. Longbottom?"

Neville was yanked out of his reverie by the sound of Professor Flitwick's reproving tone. He immediately flipped his Charms book open and pretended to be searching for a page.

"Y-Yes sir?"

"During my class I expect my Advanced Level students especially to be paying close attention to what I say, not to what is outside my window. Understood?" Flitwick smiled.

"Now, Miss… Patil. Can you show the class the wand movements for an Obliteration Charm?"

Neville sank down in his chair, red-faced, all thoughts of the mysterious trapdoor leaving his mind.

x

Ginny sat on the floor in front of the fire in the Common Room later that evening wondering about Harry's safety, just like she had so many other nights. She always came here when she was worried. The warm fire and comfy couches in the Common Room always made her feel secure even thought without Dumbledore Hogwarts was no longer invulnerable. Her worries were many this evening. From the bottom of her heart she hoped Harry was all right, wherever he was. She was furious for not having been allowed to go with him to find the Horcruxes, though when it came down to it, she was mostly glad Ron and Hermione had decided to go with him. With Hermione's smarts and Ron's loyalty, Ginny felt he couldn't be in safer hands. Even still, she couldn't just ignore that fact that she was fuming mad. She exhaled loudly and punched a pillow in frustration.

Oh, how she wished she were with him. If he only knew what she was feeling right then! She hugged the pillow close to her and curled up in a little ball on the floor. Her nearly increasingly uncontrollable emotions felt as if they were destroying her from the inside. Her heart felt as if it were about to burst, knowing he could be in danger. Then there was her anger at being left behind, which had entirely too much power over her, and her fear for him was strangling her. She really thought she would go crazy if she didn't hear from him soon. Resisting an urge to throw the pillow across the room, she lifted the pillow up to her face and was about to scream when Neville stomped through the door.

Because Ginny looked so wild and flustered, Neville questioned her cautiously.

"Gin, would you mind if I borrowed Pig?" Ginny's eyes zoomed in on the letter in his left hand. Neville elaborated.

"I just thought I would write Harry. It's been quiet here without him, and I thought maybe he would be interested in the door we saw in the floor last week."

Her eyes flashing with excitement, Ginny replied, "Of course you can, Neville, but would you mind holding on for a second? Just let me find my stationery…"

x

"Dear H.- (Ginny scribbled out the rest of his name at Neville's cautioning.)

"I am quite literally dying without you. Could you please find time to jot down a few words about what's going on, or whether or not you're safe? For my sake, at least? (Ginny rolled her eyes and added,) I promise not to tell Mum anything, if that's what you're worried about. But really, be more considerate, will you? (Ginny took Neville's advice and added once more,) I miss you dreadfully. I- love you. If that means anything.

Fretfully Yours,

G.W."


	3. Revealing Itself

Some months later, around April, Dennis received another surprise. He had long since quit searching for the door every morning, despite Harry's urges that the door should be sought after with all their strength. But what did he expect? It had been months, and nothing had changed! Dennis had always pulled back the rug to find nothing but floorboards. 'Things don't just show up for no reason,' Harry had written to Neville. 'That door could be important, or at least useful in some way.' But what could be useful to Harry at Hogwarts, while he was away doing Merlin knows what? Ginny thought that meant Harry was planning on coming back to Hogwarts; perhaps he thought there was something in the trapdoor that could help him with his fight against Voldemort. But if the door could not be found, then it certainly couldn't be of much use.

In any case, Dennis had lost faith in the trapdoor. If it wanted to be found, it would be, right? Coincidentally, precisely as he had been thinking those thoughts, a door handle appeared under his feet on the floor.

Dennis subsequently tripped, falling flat on his face.

Groaning and rubbing his nose, Dennis sat up and make sure that no one had seen him slip. After he had deemed the coast to be clear, he began to get up and examine the thing that had most ungraciously caused him to fall.

What met Dennis's eyes was a simple metal handle rising out of what appeared to be the solid rock of the third floor corridor. With recognition dawning both in his mind and on his face, he reached down to take hold of it and as he did so, the floor around it began to change appearance from stone to wood. Seconds later, a trapdoor had completely formed in the center of the corridor.

Dennis awed over the door for a second, while wondering if this was the same door he had tripped over in the common room. After all, how many disappearing trapdoors could there be in one school? Should he run and find Ginny or Neville, and bring them to see it too? Or would it only disappear again?

Deciding not to take any chances this time, Dennis chose to go ahead and enter the trapdoor, warm clothes or not. He tugged it open (it was a rather heavy door) and looked down into the hole in the floor.

For that is what it was, a mere hole in the floor. He didn't remember it looking that way- All he remembered was the burst of cold air and the ensuing thought that the trapdoor must lead somewhere outdoors. But now he noticed that while the air was cold, it wasn't fresh at all, which successfully ruled out the idea that it lead anywhere on Hogwarts grounds. Interrupting his thoughts, gentle footsteps began to echo through the corridor. Just as quickly as it appeared, the door vanished. The ground in front of Dennis was once again stone.

Only seconds later, Luna Lovegood lightly stepped into the third-floor corridor to find Dennis Creevey sitting alone, looking immensely crestfallen.

"Are you alright, Dennis? You look immensely crestfallen."

Dennis sighed and muttered, "Yes, I'm fine. You wouldn't understand, anyway." Luna frowned. Dennis made no move to get up, so Luna gracefully sat down beside him.

"I think you would find that I understand quite a lot more than you think," Luna replied curtly, obviously offended. Dennis reasoned that this was probably true, since Luna was apt to understand things that didn't even exist, and quickly decided her trustworthy. But then again, he would probably have told her anyway, being teen-aged, upset, and a Creevey all at the same time. Dennis proceeded to tell her the tale of when he had first discovered the trapdoor, and his encounter with it only seconds before. Luna was a good and patient listener and gave him feedback in all the right places. Once Dennis had finished with his story, he asked Luna,

"Well, what do you think I should do?" He waited for her answer expectantly.

Luna put her hand to her chin and thought for a moment. Silence ensued. After a few minutes, Dennis wondered if she had fallen asleep. Seeming to come to a conclusion, she placed her hand back in her lap and said,

"First, we are going to tell Ginny and Neville what you have discovered. Then, you should wait for the trapdoor to appear again. I think you should all have your DA galleons with you, in case one of you finds it while the others are away. You're right, Dennis, this does seem very interesting. It seems as if this trapdoor is seeking you out. Perhaps it is trying to tell you something, or maybe it has something to show you." Luna looked terribly serious for just surmising that a door was sentient enough to follow Dennis around. Dennis supposed that was simply how Luna worked. However, what she was saying made a certain amount of sense… maybe he just needed to ask Ginny what she thought, too.


End file.
